Before Death Note
by Lawliet1330
Summary: What happened to the Whammy Boys BEFORE the series picked up? What secrets are in Near's, Matt's, Mello's, and even L's life? Read to find out the truth... -Complete!-
1. Near

My given name is Near. I was formerly known as Nate River. I was born on the 24th of August in the year 1991, but that is of little consequence. My mother is an Albino Brit, yet my father remains a mystery. He was most likely a Russian, but that is just a hunch that I am working on.

If you have not yet guessed, I was born as "an accident." And yet, my mother cared for me very much.

I grew up in a house on Westchester Drive, in London, England. The house was small, a one story townhouse, but neither of us cared. I grew up adoring my mother, a normal child, yet with a heavy mother complex. I had friends, a mother who loved me, even though it alienated her from her family and friends, and I was not too bad off. Even though times were rough, I thought that my life was the best that it could possibly get.

And I was correct.

On September 29th, 1996 my mother was murdered in front of me. A man had come into the house, and my mother saw him before he saw us. She put me into her closet, since I had endured a nightmare earlier in the night and had climbed into bed with her I was in the room at about 2 in the morning, and told me that no matter what happened, I had to stay silent.

So that is what I did.

This man, I was too frightened to be able to register what he looked like, came into the room, calling my mother a tramp and that a child of God would not be such a "slut" as to get "knocked up" by "some bar pimp."

I had no idea what most of that meant at that age, I was 5, but I knew that it was bad since he was so angry. My mother tried to retaliate, saying that she was "young" and "foolish" and that by "taking in a bastard son" she was going to get back into "God's good graces."

I knew what that meant.

My mother not only didn't love me, she was trying to use me to get into Heaven. Yet, I still could only love her in those moments of recognition.

I had to bite on my left arm to keep from screaming as she was killed. The man shot her in the gut three times, then once in each shoulder. I watched through the small cracks in the closet shades as she stumbled back towards her bed, blood dripping on the tan bed sheets.

After she fell, he came over and whispered something in her ear, and sliced her throat with a pocket knife.

To any aspiring murderers, do not cut through the jugular veins. Blood will fly everywhere, in an impossible looking manner. It is impossible to think that so much blood can come from the same body, but the fountain of blood will keep exploding as you ponder these morbid thoughts.

When the man left, I don't know. I went into shock, and then into a comatose state.

When I woke up, I was in a hospital room for the bites on my arm. I had apparently almost bitten through the major veins in my arm, missing by millimeters.

For about a week, I wouldn't speak. I was still in shock. As I came out of my shock, quoting the reports, "all hell broke loose." I started thrashing, pulling the needles out of my arm, and tearing my stitches. I had to be put under so that they could fix me.

The next time I woke up, I was in a white room. White walls, white ceilings, white floors, white jacket, white everything. Except for a single, yellow rubber duck, everything was white. I knew immediately that I was incarcerated.

I started crying. And after the crying, I started getting angry and started thrashing about, trying to get out of my uncomfortable "jacket."

This became a routine over the next few years. Cry when I woke up, eat, then try to attack the plate of food by rolling on it (though, after the first few times the doctors would end up feeding me), and then fall asleep. I would repeat the pattern for lunch and dinner as well.

On July 17th, 1999, I was visited by one of the teacher's at Whammy's. Let me explain, while I was in incarceration, I was forced to take many tests, which were almost all inconclusive. Except for the IQ tests, that is. I scored a 172, which is unheard of for someone of my age, or of any age really. I was way above genius level, but very unstable emotionally and mentally.

The woman who came in was named Laura, and she was very kind. Tall, light brunette hair, and hazel eyes. She talked to me about being able to leave if I behaved.

So I got angry.

I yelled at her, asking why I should be able to leave this prison if my own mother didn't even love me.

The next person who came, came three days later.

That person was L.

He told me that the place he wanted to take me was full of kids just like me, and that there I would be able to learn about how to put people like my mother's killer behind bars.

Listening to him, so calm and precise even when faced with talking to an emotionally unstable, thrashing little boy, gave me an epiphany.

The only thing more worthless then I was the emotions that I carried. They held me back from my potential, and this man knew it as well. This man, who was not too much older then me, barely over 10 years older was what I had guessed, knew just how far I could go if I just released myself from my emotions.

And that is just what I did.

Every time that I caught myself in an emotion, anger, sadness, jealousy, even happiness, I would punish myself accordingly. I would stand by the window for an hour for anger, getting severe sunburns because of my albino blood. When I was sad, I would eat 12 straight sugar packets, throwing up from the ingestion of so much sugar at once. For jealousy, I would destroy one of the toys that I had.

And happiness was the worse one to deal with.

When I was happy, I would make myself anger Mello intentionally, saying something snarky or degrading to the boy, and that would remind me of who I was. Mello would remind me of how annoying, useless, petty, and ugly I really was.

I never had anything against Mello, in fact I enjoyed how witty and intellectual he was when he was calm, but I never allowed myself the luxury of a friend. I was not worth it.

And that is how I lived until that fateful day, November 6th, 2004. That was the day that me and Mello were called into Roger's office, told of our idol's death the day before.

I tried to kill myself that night.

I was going to do it.

And then Mello came into my room, wanting to talk about what he could not talk about with the other orphans of Whammy's.

He nearly caught me tying a noose with some cord from the art room. So, me being as prideful as I am (I allowed myself the luxury of pride, since it reminded me of why I lived), I let him in.

He said that he was angry at me for being so emotionless when Roger told us the news. He said that he was angry, but very jealous. He explained that he was never one to be able to control his emotions. In a moment of weakness, he slipped up and said that this was probably the reason why I was better then him.

I had another epiphany at this moment.

Mello, one of the few people whom I secretly respected, thought that I was better then him? He thought that I wasn't affected by L's death?

This was something that gave me a new purpose. I wasn't going to prove Mello wrong by allowing one man's death, a man who I barely knew personally, cause my own death. I would stay alive, if only to keep my peer's admiration true.

Mello left that night, and I swore that when I met him next, I would have the killer of L either dead or caught.

That is how I lived my life as a child.


	2. Matt

Yo, name's Matt. Well, It _was_ Mail Jeevas when I was a kid, but that was awhile ago. But, that is what I'm talking about now, so yeah.

Where to start, where to start…. Ah! I know, my race. Well, lack of race, pretty much. My ma was half English, half Caucasian, and my dad was just **all** white. So, I was a pretty normal kid. I grew up in Downtown New York, not the best of neighborhoods but it was fun. My ma was a stay-at-home ma, and my dad worked at Intel. He was a researcher for there, and he helped out the guys in development.

That's kinda where I got my fascination with electronics, I think. Yeah, it was probably that.

Well, he took me to his "take your kid to work day" thing, and I thought that I was gonna be bored out of my skull. You know, the whole "whine until he finally lets you go home and sleep" deal?

But, I actually had, well, fun there. The guys were really nice to me, since I was the only kid who wasn't sitting in a corner doing nothing but stare at the wallpaper.

I had the people explain what they were doing, and I just soaked this stuff up like a sponge! They showed me how to make a computer chip, and how to set it up inside the computer. They started laughing when I said that I could make one that was better.

I kinda got pissy at that, but hey, what do you expect? I was a genius, thought no one knew it then, but they all treated me like any normal 6 year old.

So I decided to prove them wrong.

I went to work with my dad the rest of the week as well, always sneaking off into the developing plant. This was in 1996, so computers were all bulky and stuff, but they barely did anything, ya know?

So, I looked into the system, and I tinkered around a bit, and I ended up developing the 200 MHz P6. It was hilarious to see the looks on all of the guys' faces. I felt like a God of technology!

But, apparently, that made me and my family a target. Cause rival companies don't like to think that some genius kid could make them lose their stocks and stuff.

That's when dad started to work a lot. Well, he worked a lot more then most people normally, he was a workaholic, but he started getting into his work even **more**. Me any my sister Melissa started getting worried about him, and we all decided that the family needed a vacation.

So, while he was at work, I got to work on figuring out how to trick him into going on vacation. It was research non stop, I was always at the library, leaving ma and my sis at home.

A few months after my 8th birthday, my sister was kidnapped. Apparently, while me and my dad were gone some thugs from a local competing company stole my sis.

They killed ma in order to get to her.

Two shots to the head about 12 broken bones were what happened to ma. And apparently they raped her body while the sick fucks were at it! Damn, I get pissed just thinking about this shit…

Anyways, the deal was that my dad was supposed to trade me for Melissa. I begged dad to do it, I knew that I could deal with this better than Millie, but he said that he wouldn't give into threats.

They found her body a month later, only being recognized by what was left of her teeth.

They had tortured her to death.

When they told us this crap, it was the only time I saw dad cry. Like, really cry. We both were, ya know?

Dad killed himself three months later, leaving a note saying that all of the money was to go to private detectives in order to find and arrest the thugs that killed our family.

He apparently forgot that I was still left.

So, I found out about Whammy's House for the gifted, and I contacted them, saying that I was an orphan that was really smart and needed a home.

They had me take some tests, and then they flew me over to England. I decided that I wouldn't put too much pressure on myself to be the best, cuz trying to be the best is what caused the rest of my family to be killed. My dad's need to be the best at his job had him always out of the house, unable to protect his family, while other people's need to be the best caused them to kill my ma and little sis.

After I got flown over, I was roomed with Mello. Well, for a few months. After that I got my own room, and so did he, but in those few months we were forced to share.

We ended up getting along great, and since I was smart, but not eager to be the best, it was fitting that he be my "boss" so to speak. L ended up finding the thugs, they were just some killers for hire, and they were put to the death penalty, cuz that's still around for New York, and that was that. So, after that, I admired L even more than I did before, if that was possible.

Every kid adored and admired L! Well, maybe not Near, but he didn't really care about anything, really. Near was interesting, and it was always funny to hear Mello rant on and on and on about what Near did to annoy him that day. I always got him to feel guilty for making fun of Near though, if only cuz you have to respect someone in order to hate them.

The day that everyone was told L died, I couldn't find Mello anywhere. I was almost in tears, but I wouldn't let myself cry.

I asked Roger, and he said that Mello had run away. That's when I cried. Not only did my mentor and idol die, but my best friend ran away as well? I think that was a good enough excuse to cry!

I promised that I would find him later in life and help him destroy Kira, if nothing else. I would help get revenge for the man who got me my revenge.

Well, that's how I spent my childhood, really. It's kinda depressing, I know, but it's made me, well, me. Even though it was tough, I wouldn't trade my life for anyone else's.


	3. Mello

Hey. Name's Mello. Well, that's the name I was given when I came to Whammy's, and orphanage for really smart kids. Before that, my name was Mihael Keehl. I'm German, and grew up in Köln, Northrhine-Westfalia. It's a big city, so I was never really bored as a kid. Always some shit to mess with if you were bored.

I lived with my mom and dad, but dad was an alchie and mom was just fat and lazy. Nothing all that special about me either, cuz I was just some kid down the block for most people. Neither of my parents really cared much about anything, so I was mostly on my own then, too. I ended up getting food from the neighbors, cuz they knew how irresponsible my parents were.

They were nice, the Abendroths'. Never knew the old lady's name, cuz she always had me call her "Tante" (In English, aunt). In '93, I was 4 then, the Abendroths' were driving home from their monthly date, since Tante thought that married couples should still go on dates, and as the car turned on, it blew up.

Apparently, dad found out about my going over there when he came out of his drunken stupor, for once. Actually, knowing him he probably just wanted the room next to the house. The police ended up coming over and finding the evidence immediately. The dumbass that I called a father still had the leftover metal and gunpowder stored in the garage.

So, they arrested the dumbass that was it, no? Well, the police thought that my mom was an unfit parent, which she was, so I was taken to a foster home.

Those never lasted long. The first one I was out of in two months, cuz they thought that I was just pissed from what happened. Which I was. And I still am pissed about that, I just don't think about that kinda shit much, but anyways, I was determined to get kicked out of these hellholes. All seventeen of them. And I got out of all of them, cuz I'm just that much of an asshole, even then.

On the last one, I got an interest for bombs. I was thinking about how easily the Abendroths' died. My thinking: If a dumbass alchie can do it that well, how kickass could I be at it?

So, I tinkered around for a bit with explosives. I made a small bomb, about as small as a firecracker, and I set it off in the backyard, attracting the local police to see what was going on. They didn't think that I could have made the bombs in the garage, so I had to 'explain' how I did it.

Bad move on my part.

I was labeled unfit for adoption, and a danger to society after that, and was placed in Juvenile Hall. It wasn't fun there, and a bunch of the inmates gravitated towards me, so I decided that we would plan an escape.

Everything was done, all of the plans set out in the next few months, but before that came to pass a representative for Whammy's came to see me. The lady said that if I let her take me to the orphanage, that I would be able to do all of the research that I wanted, and get smarter than anyone I had ever known.

So I went. It was that simple. I wanted to go, so I went. Of course, I had to take a couple tests, but they were easy. From then on, I strived to be bet, and got pissed off whenever I came even second.

Only, that only started when Near got his albino-ass to Whammy's. Not fun. So, I resent him. A lot. I resent him so much that I hate him. And that's all there is. No questions? Good.


	4. FinalL

I guess that it is my turn now? Alright, now where to start…

Out of every alias that I have used in my life, the most widely known is L. It doesn't stand for another alias or anything; the alias is simply "L."

The name that I have not used in many years, the one that has been lost in time, is Louis Lawliet, or just L. Lawliet. I am half British, and half Japanese. I have black hair and pale skin, since I don't get into the sun often. I haven't had any real social experiences since I was a child, every interaction now about my work.

I was born in Hagi, Japan on October 31st, 1979. I lived with my father for my earliest years, but he left me when I was about 7 years old and he deemed me old enough to survive by myself.

It was hard, but since Hagi is a normal stop for tourists, I used that as my means of survival. I would give cheap tours of the old castle houses, and explain to the few that got off of the bullet train how the Meiji Restoration had begun there.

It was hard work, keeping a smile and interacting with so many people for so little money, but it allowed me enough to eat. Though, because of my lack of money, I didn't have enough for any really good tasting foods. There is an exception, and that was on my birthday. I would save up enough so that on October 31st I could get myself a small, vanilla with strawberry icing, cake.

Since I didn't have enough money for clothes or shoes, I always wore the same thing: an old pair of dumpster jeans and whatever shirt I could find. When I was lucky, I would find some sandals.

I remember, when I was 11 I found a pair of old, disgusting shoes. They barely fit, but they did so I wore them. A few months later, I found that a seed was growing in my foot because the shoes were pressing it into the bare skin of my foot. I asked around, saying that I was just hearing about such things happening, and what I had to do was gory and painful.

The only way to get rid of the infection, which could lead to gas gangrene, was to cut it out.

As you know, I had little to no money at the time. So, I was forced to cut it out myself. The only thing that I could do for myself was to steal a small, sharp knife and use my food money to pay for some bandages.

I went back to the doghouse that I had been staying in, the dog that used to stay there died a few years before, and I took off my pants. I balled up part of one of my pant legs and stuffed it in my mouth so that when I screamed it wouldn't be as loud as to alert the owners of the house.

It was the worst pain I had ever felt. I had almost passed out at least 5 times during my procedure. By the time I was done and my foot was wrapped, I was exhausted and my entire body was throbbing. I'm in pain just remembering it.

My foot got infected about a week later. I had a fever, and in such pain that I couldn't get out of the doghouse before the owners of the house made their daily rounds (They had been paranoid that I was in their yard, so they felt it necessary).

They found me, curled up in pain, and they took me to the hospital. They paid for my hospital bills, and took me in after I was released. They had me call them my grandparents.

It was nice. I learned many things, having already taught myself to read and count, and I became entranced with reading.

Mystery novels were my favorite. My favorite was a novel called Kao ni Furikakaru Ame, by Natsuo Kirino. I was 14 when I first read it. I was fascinated with these fictional stories, but that wasn't enough. I got interested in real murder cases, and when that happened, nothing could stop me. I got a job at 14, and saved up my money. When I was 16 ½, I moved to Tokyo. I was surrounded with mystery, and I started my investigations. I chose the nickname "L" since it was dramatic because of its lack of drama. I made my first case by finding the closing evidence against Govinda Prasad Mainali in his case in 1997. All I did was send the information and my conclusions to the chief of police in Tokyo in a manila envelope. After that, nothing could stop me. I solved cases left and right, and in exchange the police would pay me. When I was 19, I met Quillish Whammy. He was an inventor, but he told me that he didn't feel as though he was making a difference anymore. He offered to become my assistant and to be my representative for the police. He said that he accepted all of the burdens of helping me help the world, and that he would use his fortune to get me across the world in order for me to more thoroughly work. I accepted his offer, and that is where my life picked up. I became the world's biggest detective, as well as taking hundreds and hundreds of aliases, solving hundreds of cases that were deemed too hard to solve. When I was 20 Quillish, his alias 'Watari', converted an orphanage that he had started. Instead of it solely being an orphanage or gifted children, it was to also train them to become the next 'L.' And that is my story. From there, the story is known. Well, as much as can be known. There was no juvenile love affair, no privileged childhood, and nothing that extraordinary. I was just a smart person in bad situations. 


End file.
